In the opening sentence of the very first of Paul’s letters which have come down to us - and that is as much as to say, in the very first sentence which, so far as we know, he ever wrote, - he makes use of a phrase in speaking of the Christians’ God, which at once attracts our interested attention. According to the generous way he had of thinking and speaking of his readers at the height of their professions, he describes the church at Thessalonica as living and moving and having its being in God. But, as it was a Christian church which he was addressing, he does not content himself, in this description, with the simple term “God.” He uses the compound phrase, “God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” The Thessalonians, he says, because they were Christians, lived and moved and had their being “in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”
It is quite clear that this compound phrase was not new on Paul’s lips, coined for this occasion. It bears on its face the evidence of a long and familiar use, by which it had been worn down to its bare bones. All the articles have been rubbed off, and with them all other accessories; and it stands out in its baldest elements as just “God Father and Lord Jesus Christ.” Plainly we have here a mode of speaking of the Christians’ God which was customary with Paul.
We are not surprised, therefore, to find this phrase repeated in precisely the same connection in the opening verses of the next letter which Paul wrote - II Thessalonians - with only the slight variation that an “our” is inserted with “God the Father,” - “in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” The significance of this variation is, probably, that, although it is a customary formula which is being employed, it has not hardened into a mechanically repeated series of mere words. It is used with lively consciousness of its full meaning, and with such slight variations of wording from time to time as the circumstances of each case, or perhaps the mere emotional movement of the moment, suggested.
This free handling of what is, nevertheless, clearly in essence a fixed formula, is sharply illustrated by a third instance of its occurrence. Paul uses it again in the opening sentence of the third letter which he wrote, - that to the Galatians. Here it is turned, however, end to end, while yet preserving all its essential elements; and is set in such a context as to throw its fundamental meaning into very strong emphasis. Paul was called upon to defend to the Galatians the validity of his apostleship, and he characteristically takes occasion to assert, in the very first words which he wrote to them, that he received it from no human source, - no, nor even through any human intermediation, - but directly from God. The way he does this is to announce himself as “an apostle not from men, neither through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father” - “who,” he adds, “raised Him from the dead.” The effect of the addition of these last words is to throw the whole emphasis of the clause on “Jesus Christ”; even “God the Father” is defined in relation to Him. Yet the whole purpose of the sentence is to assert the divine origin of Paul’s apostleship in strong contrast with any possible human derivation of it. Clearly, the phrase “Jesus Christ and God the Father” denotes something purely Divine. It is in effect a Christian periphrasis for “God.” And in this Christian periphrasis for “God” the name of Jesus Christ takes no subordinate place.
It will conduce to our better apprehension of the nature and implications of this Christian periphrasis for “God” which Paul employs in the opening words of each of the first three of his epistles, if we will set side by side the actual words in which it is phrased in these three instances.
1 Thess. 1:1: ἐν θεῷ πατρὶ καὶ κυρίῳ Ἰησοῦ Χριστῷ.
2 Thess. 1:1: ἐν θεῷ πατρὶ ἡμῶν καί κυρίῳ Ἰησοῦ
Χριστῷ.
Gal. 1:1: διὰ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ καὶ θεοῦ πατρὸς τοῦ
ἐγείραντος αὐτὸν ἐκ νεκρῶν.
It is not, however, merely or chiefly in these three instances that Paul uses this Christian periphrasis for God. It is the apostle’s custom to bring the address which he prefixes to each of his letters to a close in a formal prayer that the fundamental Christian blessings of grace and peace (or, in the letters to Timothy, grace, mercy and peace) may be granted to his readers. In this prayer he regularly employs this periphrasis to designate the Divine Being to whom the prayer is offered. It fails to appear in this opening prayer in two only of his thirteen letters; and its failure to appear in these two is useful in fixing its meaning in the other eleven. It is quite clear that Paul intends to say the same thing in all thirteen instances: they differ only in the fulness with which he expresses his identical meaning. When he says in I Thess. i. 1 only “Grace to you and peace,” he is not expressing a mere wish; he is invoking the Divine Being in prayer; and his mind is as fully on Him as if he had formally named Him. And when he names this Divine Being whom he is invoking in this prayer, in Col. i. 2, “God our Father,” -“Grace to you and peace from God our Father” - his meaning is precisely the same as when he names Him in the companion letter, Eph. i. 2, “God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” - “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” - or in a similar prayer at the end of the same letter, Eph. vi. 23, “God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” - “Peace to the brethren and love along with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” In every instance Paul is invoking the Divine Being and only the Divine Being. Once he leaves that to be understood from the nature of the case. Once he names this Being simply “God the Father.” In the other eleven instances he gives Him the conjunct name, which ordinarily takes the form of “God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ,” - obviously employing a formula which had become habitual with him in such formal prayers.